I am – Hercules!!
My pal and fellow AICN editor Moriarty came into the talkback of my beautiful HDTV cellar two weeks ago to slander the new HD disc media as “Laserdisc 2K6.” Which I have taken to mean he thinks HD will never catch on with the mainstream, just as Laserdisc never did.
Moriarty’s a bona fide evil genius - but I think the keepcase polymers from his enormous collection of standard-definition DVDs must have seeped into and overtaken his brain that week.
Laserdisc was for idiots like me who didn’t want to wait until the DVD era to get their movies in widescreen. That was a niche thing.
High-definition is a much much much bigger deal. High-definition TV is to 2006 what color TV was to 1966. Almost all scripted primetime programming is now in HD, and the networks aren’t shy about letting us know this with fancy graphics at the top of every hour.
In 2004, Sean Wargo, director of industry analysis for the Consumer Electronics Association, said households tuning in HD content stood at 3.7 percent in 2004 and would rise to 33 percent by 2007.
And no wonder! When I walk into Best Buy or Circuit City, all I see are HD sets. You go to the “TV bestseller” page 
on Amazon.com and everything over 20 inches is an HD set. I know when my sister’s 36-inch set breaks, she won’t be replacing it with an SD set, even if she can still find one that big. She’ll be replacing it with HD, and I’m pretty sure everybody else with a set over 30 inches be doing the same.
As consumers continue to buy these new HDTV sets and get used to watching “24” and “Lost” and “Veronica Mars” and “The Sopranos” and “The Revenge of the Sith” in HD, they’re going to grow acutely aware of how much worse old standard-definition DVDs look on the same set. And, trust me, they’re going to want to spend $20 or $25 to get “Godfather” or “Raiders” or “Empire” in HD.
It’s a given that HD is in Moriarty’s near future; he’s a movie geek. But my sense is America’s non-movie-geek army of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Monday Night Football” fans won’t be far behind him.
HERC’S PICKS OF THE WEEK!!
FULL METAL JACKET (1987). “Were you about to call me an asshole?” Brain-melting Kubrick goodness. Terrifying and hilarious. Not nominated for an Oscar. Pictures that were that year include “The Accidental Tourist” and “Dangerous Liaisons.” R. Lee Ermey didn’t get a Oscar nomination, which is why I wish we’d all stop lending the Oscars credence of any kind. Five stars on the Herc scale.
THE FUGITIVE (1993). “What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. Your fugitive's name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him.” Casting Tommy Lee Jones was the idea of director Andrew Davis (“Under Siege”), who had earlier used him in “The Package.” Screenplay by Jeb Stuart, coming off of “48 Hours” and “Die Hard,” and David Twohy, coming off “Critters 2” and “Warlock.” Gripping throughout, save for a surprisingly uninspired denouement. Amazing how shitty “U.S. Marshals,” Stuart Baird’s 1998 sequel, turned out. Four and a half stars.
UNFORGIVEN (1992). “All right now, I'm comin' out. Any man I see out there, I'm gonna shoot him. Any sumbitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only gonna kill him, but I'm gonna kill his wife, all his friends, and burn his damn house down.” For my money? Best Eastwood film ever. “Fistful of Dollars,” “Dirty Harry,” “In The Line of Fire,” the orangutan movies, anything else you want to toss in there. Scripted by David Webb Peoples, coming off “Blade Runner” and “Ladyhawke.” Gene Hackman won “best supporting actor” (it was the last Oscar nod he ever got) and deserves it; Little Bill Daggett remains one of the most wonderful and scary and funny and compelling movie villains ever concocted. Five stars.
HERC’S IDIOTIC FORMAT-WAR THOUGHT. A lot of readers keep linking the HD-DVD/Blu-ray “format war” to videogame systems, so it occurs to me: Is it possible that HD-DVD and Blu-ray can co-exist in the long term? X-Box and PlayStation have co-existed for a good long time, and many of the same games have been created to support both systems. And Macs and PCs continue to thrive alongside each other. So maybe HD-DVD and Blu-ray shouldn’t be looked at like VHS and Betamax? Maybe two HD systems can survive without killing each other? Maybe?
THE STANDING CAVEAT. Here’s the calendar. HD-DVD players have been out since April, but remain tricky to find; the first Blu-ray players are expected to start to hit the market at the end of next month. Beware the two conflicting formats! HD-DVD discs cannot be played on Blu-ray machines and Blu-ray discs cannot be played on HD-DVD machines!
Herc’s Slightly Less Puny HD Disc Calendar
Already Out
Apollo 13 (HD-DVD) $24.49
Assault on Precinct 13 (HD-DVD) $24.49
Cinderella Man (HD-DVD) $24.49
Doom (HD-DVD) $24.49
Goodfellas (HD-DVD) $19.99
Jarhead (HD-DVD) $24.49
The Last Samurai (HD-DVD) $19.99
Million Dollar Baby (HD-DVD) $21.99
The Phantom of the Opera (HD-DVD) $19.99
Rumor Has It (DVD/HD-DVD) $27.99
Serenity (HD-DVD) $24.49
Swordfish (HD-DVD) $19.99
Training Day (HD-DVD) $19.99
May 23
Blazing Saddles (HD-DVD) $28.99 <--- NEW!!
The Bourne Supremacy (HD-DVD) $24.49
The Chronicles of Riddick (HD-DVD) $24.49
Chronos (BLU-RAY) $16.99
The Fugitive (HD-DVD) $19.99 <--- NEW!!
Full Metal Jacket (HD-DVD) $20.29 <--- NEW!!
Van Helsing (HD-DVD) $24.49
U-571 (HD-DVD) $24.49
Unforgiven (HD-DVD) $28.99 <--- NEW!!
June 20
The Fifth Element (BLU-RAY) $20.29
50 First Dates (BLU-RAY) $20.29
Hitch (BLU-RAY) $19.99
House of Flying Daggers (BLU-RAY) $20.29
A Knight's Tale (BLU-RAY) $20.29
The Last Waltz (BLU-RAY) $20.29
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (BLU-RAY) $20.29
Underworld Evolution (BLU-RAY) $27.29
XXX (BLU-RAY) $20.29
June 27
Crash (BLU-RAY) $27.99
Lord of War (BLU-RAY) $27.99
The Punisher (BLU-RAY) $20.99
Robocop (BLU-RAY) $20.29
Saw (BLU-RAY) $20.99
Species (BLU-RAY) $20.29
Terminator 2 (BLU-RAY) $20.99
Ultraviolet (BLU-RAY) $27.29
July 25
Kung Fu Hustle (BLU-RAY) $20.29
Legends of the Fall (BLU-RAY) $20.29
Stealth (BLU-RAY) $20.29
S.W.A.T. (BLU-RAY) $20.29
The Terminator (BLU-RAY) $20.29
